Duck Prosciutto

To paraphrase my old boss, Taylor Boetticher, "Duck is the pig of the poultry world."  This is true because the duck has so much fat and its fat is the most prized of all the birds, no disrespect to schmaltz.  It's also the only bird I've come across that people are curing.

I first encountered duck prosciutto on a brief trip to Vancouver, Canada.  It was at Granville Island, the city's famed market that I came across a small booth selling a variety of charcuterie.  They had a variety of cured goodies, but my novice taste buds were drawn to the slightly less conventional (at the time) animals: elk and duck prosciutto, both, which seem less exotic now.  The duck has an amazing fat cap, almost comparable to that of a pork loin.  It was silky and salty. I don't remember much else, other than I was mesmerized by the novelty of it.  At this point in my life I was working at my dad's ice cream shop and what little I knew about cured meats was limited to traditional stuff.

Recently my interest in duck prosciutto has turned from exotic to convenient.  Using a recipe from the celebrated book, Charcuterie, I reunited with duck prosciutto and made it myself.

There's lot of risk when curing a raw product.  Essentially you apply salt to a piece of meat to draw out moisture and create a hostile environment for bacteria to grow.  It's much more complicated than that, but that's kind of the basis of it.  If done incorrectly you can get extremely sick, or even die.

The reason why I chose duck prosciutto as my first curing project is because it's a quick project in the scheme of things.  The whole process took just over a week.

First, you take a duck breast and cover it in salt (1-2 cups, I've even added a little sugar to lighten the saltiness), and leave it in the fridge for 24 hours.  Next, you rinse off the salt and lightly dust the breast with whatever you see fit.  Charcuterie suggests black pepper.  I've used Chinese five-spice, ground star anise and fennel.  Another method you can use is taking all that seasoning and mix it with the salt.

Once you've cured your meat, rinsed it and seasoned it, you'll need to hang it for at least a week.  The first time I did this, I wrapped the breast in cheesecloth and then tied it with twine.  The cheesecloth provides a little protection from the elements, but also slows down the process of drawing moisture out of the duck breast.

(Duck Prosciutto round 1 on the right, Guanaciale on the left)

Once you've gotten this far, you'll need a place to hang the duck breast.  Basements, especially in San Francisco, are ideal because they are typically somewhere between 45-60 degrees.  If you have space under a stairwell, that works too.  You just want to find a dry, cool place to store your meat.  Rooms with cement floors are great, too because cement takes a longer time to change temperatures.  You'll also want to find a room with a decent humidity.  This helps the outside of the meat from drying up too quickly and trapping any bad bacteria.

I've hung my duck breasts for about 8-9 days.  The outside was a little harder than the inside, but it tasted great!  Salt, iron, warm from the spices.  This is a great, quick first project for anyone interested in making his or her own cured meat.